About 10,000 demonstrators massed for a second straight day in the capital of Europe’s poorest country after the Communist Party led by veteran president Vladimir Voronin scored a big victory in a weekend parliamentary election.

Opposition leaders demanded a new election to resolve the confrontation with Voronin, the only Communist president in Europe, who accused them of seeking destabilisation and demanded an end to the “bacchanalia.” …

Protesters hurling rocks overwhelmed riot police protecting both the president’s office and parliament — located opposite each other on the capital Chisinau’s main boulevard — and poured into both buildings through smashed windows. …

Arcadie Barbarosiem, from Moldova’s Institute for Public Policy, said the opposition had mishandled the protests.

“Opposition leaders have wasted a lot of time. Will they be able to lead this protest, to direct it in a more civilised way?” he said. “Will they have enough force, intellect and skills to do so?”

The election polarised Moldova between mostly older and rural voters, who see the Communists as a guarantor of stability, and those who identify with pro-Western liberal parties that broadly call for closer ties with Romania. …

The communists won about 50 percent of the vote. Parliament elects the president, and the Communists appeared very close to securing the 61 seats they need in the 101-seat assembly to secure victory for their chosen candidate.

So, this is what those observers from Western, mainly anti communist, countries say.

Imagine if communists would lose an election and then in revenge would start smashing government buildings, computers, etc. The corporate media would resound with descriptions of the communists as “thugs”, “criminals”, “hooligans”, and what not.

If someone is supposedly a “sore loser” after winning more votes than his opponent; then, how should one call the Moldovan anti communists? The communists got “about 50 percent”; the biggest anti communist, pro Greater Romania and pro NATO party got 13%?